


Insight and Incarnation

by Mnemosyne_Elegy



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Post-Tower of Heaven alt ending, Tragedy, Unresolved Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26056237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosyne_Elegy/pseuds/Mnemosyne_Elegy
Summary: This was the other fic I wrote for the Grayza fanzine a few months back. If you're interested, you can find the free fanzine PDF if you Google "Grayza fanzine tumblr". It's linked on their tumblr page (grazya-fanzine at tumblr). Or you can follow the link here: drive.google.com/file/d/1rlVKG83Bxq18mfWu2Fg_0TPIJJpkaGPt/view .
Relationships: Gray Fullbuster & Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster/Erza Scarlet
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Insight and Incarnation

**Author's Note:**

> This was the other fic I wrote for the Grayza fanzine a few months back. If you're interested, you can find the free fanzine PDF if you Google "Grayza fanzine tumblr". It's linked on their tumblr page (grazya-fanzine at tumblr). Or you can follow the link here: drive.google.com/file/d/1rlVKG83Bxq18mfWu2Fg_0TPIJJpkaGPt/view .

Erza opened her eyes and blinked once, twice. She appeared to be floating and was wearing an unfamiliar white dress, which was confusing enough. Even more mystifying was that she was looking down at her friends and guildmates gathered around a memorial out in the cemetery, crying and huddling in their coal-black clothes like beady-eyed ravens. A funeral, she realized. But who…?

She looked down at her hands, wondering if they were paler than usual or she was just imagining it. The last thing she remembered was being back at the Tower with Jellal, melting into the giant lacrima while Natsu screamed at her to stop. Was she…dead? Was it _her_ funeral?

"I'm dead," she said experimentally, her voice small and wavering. The words tasted bitter and unfamiliar on her tongue, and her mouth contorted around them strangely. It seemed too surreal.

"What are you doing?" Natsu roared, interrupting the Master's speech as he charged into the gathering with all the fury of an inferno. "She's not dead! She can't be. You know she–"

"Just stop!" Lucy cried, her voice cracking. A few of their guildmates rushed forward to restrain the dragon slayer until he calmed down. "She's gone, Natsu. She's…"

She dissolved into tears and covered her face with her hands. Gray stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed. Gray kept his head down and said nothing. And Natsu was crying too, although he didn't seem to realize it.

Erza felt sick to her stomach as she watched her team and guild crying like their hearts had been ripped out of their chests.

"This wasn't what I wanted," she whispered. "I just wanted them to live and be happy."

This couldn't be how it ended. She didn't want to hurt them like that. She had only ever wanted to protect them, but now she realized too late that you weren't supposed to die for your friends.

You were supposed to live for them.

* * *

Erza found her way back to the ground and followed the gloomy group as they trailed back to the guild. Natsu disappeared off into the streets as soon as he broke free from the friends trying to ground him. So did Gray. Everyone else straggled back to the guild hall and huddled in silent, soggy clumps.

"I'm right here," Erza said, but no one heard her.

She tried to touch Lucy on the shoulder, shake her and make her _see_ , but her hand went right through her friend like air. She eyed her hand like it was a venomous viper about to strike.

It wasn't right. None of this was right. She didn't want everyone to be heartbroken. She didn't want to be dead.

She had the strangest feeling that if she just tried _hard_ enough, wished it _badly_ enough, she could rewind time to before she'd surrendered herself to the lacrima. Maybe she could go back and get a redo, find another way so that they could all live together happily ever after.

But that was a thing for fantasy and fairy tales, and there was no magic strong enough to just wish herself back alive.

She wasn't a quitter, though. She shouted and waved her hands in front of people's faces and tried in vain to shake her friends.

"Why can't you _see_ me?" she cried.

But her words fell on deaf ears and her body was invisible and her hands only slid through whatever she wanted to touch. No one took the slightest notice of her. Why should they? She was already gone.

"I'm right here," she said miserably.

Finally, she slumped over onto the bench beside Lucy in defeat and yelped as she slid right through the wood and landed on the floor. One of her legs appeared to be slipping through the floorboards. She imagined sinking through the floor and deep down into the earth to be buried alive—or dead, as the case might be.

She scrambled back to her feet and eyed the quicksand floor warily. She realized that she wasn't sinking, exactly, but her feet didn't rest on the floor quite right. It was like the idea of the floor was there but it wasn't quite solid, and her feet were getting it _almost_ right but were still a little off—sometimes a little above the planks, sometimes a little below. And she felt nothing at all, no sense of pressure or firmness or chill or heat. It was like she was in her own little bubble, her own parallel world that overlapped the real one but didn't sit quite right and the edges didn't meet up.

It was making her dizzy and her thoughts spun wildly as she tried to process it, so she retreated to the corner and tore her gaze away to watch her guildmates instead. Which might distract her from her tenuous grip on reality but didn't make her feel any better. Watching them broke her heart.

They were all so miserable, and she was used to seeing them with smiles on their faces. She couldn't take it.

She fled from the guild, passing through the heavy double doors like a mirage, and _ran_. It didn't matter how far or fast she ran. She didn't gasp for breath or feel the blood pumping in her chest or get a stitch in her side. It was like floating in nothing. Like the world and all its sensations were disappearing…or maybe like she was.

Eventually, she found herself back at her memorial—her _grave_. She sank down into—through—the grass, folding her legs beneath her, and stared with empty eyes. Her panic was subsiding, her emotions burning away, and she felt dull and hollow. Maybe she was forgetting how to feel along with how to sense.

She sat there for a long time, trying not to think about how she couldn't feel the tickle of grass on her legs or the chill evening breeze caressing her skin. She tried not to think about how she wasn't _breathing_ and her heart wasn't _beating_. She tried not to think about her friends sobbing in each other's arms or slinking off to grieve alone. She tried not to think about what would happen to her now and what this meant and how _permanent_ it was. She had no idea what would become of her or the guild, and she had always hated not knowing.

"Well, hello," said a voice from behind her. "You must be new."

She spun around so fast she almost lost her balance, and her knees didn't scrape against the gritty ground but passed right through it. There was a small girl with long curls of blonde hair and striking green eyes standing between the rows of gravestones. Her feet were bare, which seemed strange in the chilly weather. Erza glanced around, looking for whoever the girl might be addressing, but there was nothing to be seen except a striking sunset of orange and purple and a field of graves.

"This is the part where you tell me your name," the girl said, an amused lilt tugging at her voice. "Mine is Mavis."

Erza stared. "You can _see_ me?"

"Yup!"

"But… You're a ghost too?"

Mavis wrinkled her nose and tilted her head as she considered that. "Sort of, I guess."

"What does that mean?"

The girl flapped her hand dismissively. "What's your name?"

Erza finally remembered her manners, and then wondered if they were necessary when you were dead and introducing yourself to other ghosts. "Erza. Who are you? What do we do now? Why are we still here? How do we make people see us? Or hear us? Or let them know we're still here? Can we–?"

"Whoa!" Mavis said, holding up her hands. "You ask even more questions than I do!"

Erza attempted to take a deep breath, before remembering that she couldn't anymore, and tried again. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Why–?"

She clamped her mouth shut tight, not wanting to chase her new acquaintance off with a bombardment of questions. This was the only other ghost she'd met, the only person who could still see and hear her, and she was terrified of being left alone again.

"I'm Mavis," the girl said brightly, as if that answered everything.

"Yes… You already said that. But–"

"Usually I stay on Tenrou, but I sensed some sort of disturbance with the guild and came to check it out. You must be Fairy Tail if you can see me."

"Tenrou?" Erza asked, her brows drawing together. That was an important place to the guild, but she wasn't seeing the connection. "But I was just in the guild and no one could see me."

"It's different for you," Mavis said with a shrug. "I'll probably go back soon. I like it there, and I don't have to watch the world pass me by. You can come if you want. If you're still hanging around."

Erza gave up trying to understand her cryptic answers and tried a different tack. "But why _am_ I still hanging around? Why haven't I 'moved on' or whatever?"

Mavis shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe you have unfinished business to take care of. Maybe you're having a hard time letting go. Maybe someone is having a hard time letting go of you."

Erza shook her head, frustrated by the lack of solid answers. She wanted something to grasp on to, some tangible truth to make sense of her situations.

"But what do I _do_?"

Mavis sighed, age suddenly lining her child's face and darkening her emerald eyes. "I'm still here, aren't I? I suppose you'll have to figure it out for yourself." Then she smiled again, cheeks dimpling. "Well, I might as well take a look around before heading back to Tenrou," she said cheerfully. "I'll drop by to check on you before I go."

"Wait–"

But Mavis bounced off and seemed to disappear, leaving her alone again. Erza shivered against a wind she couldn't feel and pretended to cry tears that wouldn't come.

* * *

Erza soon discovered that one of the accoutrements of living she no longer needed—or, in fact, was _capable_ of—was sleep. She sat by her grave for a long time until she grew restless, then paced about the graveyard and in larger rings around the city. She wandered the silent streets and walked between the rows of dark-eyed houses jutting up from the ground like a mouthful of jagged teeth.

She had always thought death would be a little like eternal sleep, if the whole heaven thing didn't pan out. It turned out to be anything but, and with her mind racing round and round in a wild tangle of panic and disbelief and uncertainty, she had nearly driven herself insane by the time the sun peeked over the horizon and bathed everything in a rosy glow. She wanted to cry in relief when the sun rose like clockwork, but tears were a thing of the past and she no longer seemed to possess tear ducts.

People began waking and venturing out into the streets, bleary-eyed and hiding yawns behind hands. The city was slowly waking and coming alive again, and Erza was so glad because the stillness of the night had made it seem like it was dead. Like her.

She was so desperate to _not_ be the last thing on earth that she made a beeline for the guild despite how much it hurt to see them. She hovered in the corner and watched them with hungry eyes. Everyone was still subdued and swollen-eyed, but they looked a little less like waxy wraiths now that at least some of them were wearing proper colors again instead of heavy black.

Lucy's face was drawn in tight lines and her eyes were rimmed with red, but she was seated in her normal spot. Gray and Natsu and Happy were nowhere to be seen. Their usual table looked desolate and empty with only one member of the team left behind.

At least the guild tried for some semblance of normalcy, but everyone was much too gloomy and withdrawn to pull it off. And then, sometime around noon, Cana finally slammed her tankard down and broke through the somber atmosphere with a voice just a little too loud with drunkenness.

"You remember when she first came here?" she slurred. Every eye in the room jumped to her. No one asked who she meant. "She was so standoffish, but she put Gray right in his place. Ya know, I read his cards that morning and they said it would be his lucky day, and he was all whining 'cause he dropped his wallet in a mud puddle or something silly. Betcha he didn't think he was so lucky when she started beating him to a pulp!" She cackled, her voice catching in her throat in a funny way, almost like a half-formed sob. "She really was great at keeping our troublemakers in check. It was great having her keep Gray and Natsu in line…and even Mira, for a while."

And suddenly everyone had a story to tell, some small memory of something Erza had said or done over the years, something they'd felt for her. She wished more than anything that she could cry, because hearing about all those small moments she had taken for granted and all the things she would never be able to do again hurt. She wouldn't get to yell at Natsu for fighting or scold Cana for drinking too much or sit with Gray at the riverbank again. She wouldn't get to go fishing with Happy or tease Mira or share rolled eyes with Lucy at the boys' antics. She wouldn't get to eat strawberry cake or have a picnic or requip.

If she had known she was going to die, what would she have done first? What would she have said to her friends, as her last goodbyes? What would she have wanted to experience one last time? What would she have _done_?

But she hadn't known and she'd missed her chance and now it was too late. And the stories _hurt_ , because she wanted to be right there in the middle sharing those memories with her friends and building new ones.

"I'm right _here_!" she said, but no one heard her. She was already gone.

Lucy stood up abruptly, and Levy trailed off in the middle of her sentence. "Are you okay, Lu-chan?"

Lucy nodded once, sharply. She hadn't said a word while everyone shared their stories. Hadn't even looked at them. Erza wondered if she felt it keenly too, that she wasn't part of this. They were opposites like that. Lucy hadn't been part of their life back then, and Erza wasn't part of it now.

"I think I'll check on Gray and Natsu," Lucy said, her voice ringing hollow.

"Or maybe not," Mira cautioned. "Natsu just needs a little space, and Happy is with him. And Gray… Just give them a day. I'm sure they'll come back after they've had a chance to grieve on their own."

Lucy walked out the door without responding, but she didn't, in fact, go looking for her missing teammates. She went home and curled up in her bed and cried, and Erza hovered beside her awkwardly, whispering words of comfort she couldn't hear and trying to figure out how to touch without putting her hand through Lucy's shoulder.

It was awful.

Erza stayed until she couldn't take it anymore, feeling it her duty to witness the pain she had caused and to stand by her friend the only way she could, and then fled into the streets once more. She couldn't bear to go back to the guild, with all its gloomy faces and tales of days long past. When she wandered the streets calling for Mavis, there was no response. And not once did she find another ghost or anyone who could see her.

Eventually, she gave up and went on the hunt. It was true that Natsu and Gray weren't the type who liked to be disturbed while they were grieving, but it wasn't like they'd see her anyway. If the guild couldn't check on them, she would. It seemed like a very bad idea given how overwhelming everyone's grief was, but she felt an irresistible pull tugging her towards the guild and her friends. No matter how much it hurt, there wasn't anywhere else she'd rather be. Anywhere else she _could_ be. Where else would she go? What else would she do? These were the people that had her heart, and she couldn't bear to go wandering off into the great unknown without them.

She found Natsu in the forest outside the city by following the sound of splintering trees and wanton destruction. The dragon slayer had charred every tree within a hundred foot radius, and was attacking the blackened stumps as if he intended to rip them out of the ground or burn them down to nothing.

"Natsu, you have to stop," Happy was saying from where he hovered in the air several feet back. "You can't be angry at her forever."

"Watch me," Natsu snarled. He punched the blackened skeleton of an oak with a fiery fist, and Happy retreated another few paces to avoid the rain of ash and splinters. "How dare she give up like that?"

Erza shrank back, feeling like she was intruding on something private, something she wasn't meant to see. Maybe something she didn't _want_ to see. She didn't want to see Natsu's grief manifested as rage. She didn't want to hear him condemn her for what she'd done.

"She's gone, Natsu." Happy's ears flattened back against his skull, and his tail drooped. "It's not fair to be angry anymore."

"What gives her the right to kill herself just like that? How could she be so _selfish_?"

"Natsu… You did everything you could. You can't be angry anymore—it's not your fault."

And Happy's words made Erza realize who Natsu really blamed even before the dragon slayer's face crumpled.

"But I was right there," he whispered. The flames flickering around his fists died away, and he buried his face in his hands. "I could have stopped her."

"Oh, Natsu," Erza murmured. "It wasn't your job to stop me."

"No, you couldn't have," Happy said. "No one could stop her once she'd decided to do something."

"You don't understand!" Natsu cried. "I almost _did_! I almost managed to pull her out of that lacrima. I was so _close_. Everything exploded and she was right _there_ , and I grabbed her but I couldn't hold on. I couldn't hold on."

He sank to his knees in the middle of the wreckage, anger spent, and doubled over with the force of his sobs. Erza looked on in horror as Happy zipped over and wriggled into his lap.

She wondered what would have happened if he _did_ manage to hold on and drag her out of the magical vortex. She wondered if she would have lived, or if everyone would have died in the explosion. The only real possibilities she could imagine were dying to save them all or standing by and watching them burn. Now she wondered if there could have been such a thing as a happily ever after.

But she had made her choice, and there was no going back now. And Natsu shouldn't be taking the blame for the choices she'd made.

She sank to her knees beside him, white skirt fluttering across the black ash, and whispered that it was okay, it wasn't his fault, he should go back to the guild for their support. He couldn't hear her, but she hoped that maybe he could feel her presence just a little and it might bring him some comfort.

If so, he showed no sign of it.

She talked until she ran out of words, and then she stood with a heavy heart and left Happy to console him. There was nothing more that she could do.

Gray was easier to find, although she hesitated on his doorstep. She wasn't sure she wanted to see any more grief today, but she could feel that pull tugging her toward him, that sense of responsibility. Maybe this was her penance, her purgatory.

Unlike Natsu's emotional whirlwind, Gray's grief was silent and solitary and still. Erza found him still in bed, covers pulled tight around him. At first she thought he was sleeping, but his eyes were open and he stared blankly out the window near the bedside. The silence was suffocating. He barely seemed to be breathing and never moved. The utter lack of life was more unnerving than the crying or anger of the others. Erza didn't know what to make of it, especially when the Gray she knew was usually so full of life and emotion.

She hovered in the corner, watching uneasily. She was searching for some sign that he would be okay, but he gave her none. She could connect to the others through their stories or crying or words, but Gray had built a wall to keep her out. There was nothing to give away what he might be thinking or feeling behind those dead slate eyes.

She willed him to do something, anything, but he didn't move. And she couldn't leave, not while he was like this. As much as she hated watching, she couldn't look away.

She knew the guild would be okay eventually, that they'd tell their stories and keep her in their memories but slowly move on. They had recovered from Lisanna's 'death', and they would recover from hers. Lucy would be okay once her tears dried. She had so many friends to love her and such a positive, optimistic view of the world. Natsu would be okay and eventually let go of the guilt. He always bounced back stronger than before, and nothing could keep him down. He and Happy would be there for each other, and the guild would come together. They had to.

Gray would be okay too, surely, but this lifeless version of him was giving Erza doubts. Usually he was so strong. Maybe sometimes he felt too much, got angry or sad or even self-destructive, but he was always feeling something, doing something. He never just laid there and gave up. He was always in motion, and his utter stillness was disconcerting.

"Come on, Gray," Erza whispered into the silence. "Get up. Do something. Cry or scream, hate me or love me, but do _something_."

But of course he couldn't hear her. He barely moved all day, as the afternoon sun faded to twilight and disappeared into evening's shadows. Erza wanted to run and find Mavis and beg her for a way to fix this, all of this. There had to be _something_ she could do to bring her friends peace. There had to be a reason she was still here.

But she found herself rooted to the spot. Everyone had someone to lean on, but Gray was alone. He could go to the others, but he wouldn't. He had lost too many people and been alone too long, and Erza couldn't be the reason he went back after all this time. She couldn't just leave him alone again, even if he didn't know it.

She sat with him throughout the night, hovering just at chair level with some concentration in the chair across the room. She watched the stars out the window as his breathing finally evened out. They were so pretty, but the darkness was so big and so black. It looked like the night could swallow them whole. She wished she and her friends weren't being swallowed up one by one in the darkness.

The night went on forever, but slowly the sun rose again and splashed crimson across the sky like blood.

Gray rose with the dawn, moving slowly and stiffly but _moving_. Erza watched apprehensively as he dragged himself across the room and disappeared into the bathroom. He reappeared a few minutes later, clothing straightened and hair combed.

His eyes didn't seem to focus on anything as he walked out the door. Erza followed him back to the guild. Everyone was there again, including Gray and Natsu and Happy and Lucy. It _had_ to be a good sign that they were all back together again, but she couldn't help but watch her team anxiously, especially Gray. He was quiet and withdrawn, but at least he'd rejoined the world.

Erza sat beside them at their usual table, pretending that she could feel the bench beneath her and the tabletop under her fingertips, but conversation was stilted. She stuck it out for an hour, maybe two, and then slipped back out of the building. She just couldn't stand seeing them like that, with all the life sucked out of them. Surely they were doing better now and didn't need her standing guard.

Or that was what she tried to tell herself, but she found herself unable to leave entirely and hovered uncertainly outside the guild hall. Where else was she supposed to go? This was her home, her family.

"You're very attached to them, aren't you?" Mavis asked. Erza started in surprise and turned to see that the blonde-haired girl was also standing along the front wall, face plastered to the window as she peered inside. "And they're very attached to you. Especially the dark-haired one."

"Dark-haired one?" Erza repeated. She drifted over to see who Mavis was looking at. "Gray? I don't see why he should be any more attached than the others."

"Can't you feel it? The pull they have on you?"

Mavis had put a name to the feeling Erza was struggling with, the one that had slipped beneath her skin and pulled tight like fish hooks, reeling her back in when she tried to stray too far. And…maybe it was stronger with Gray and that was why she had been unable to leave his side all night. But she didn't know why it would be like that or what she should do about it.

"Yes, but…"

Mavis turned away from the glass and smiled brightly. "Now that you're out, do you want to come look around the city with me? Magnolia has changed so much! I've been finding so many fun things!"

Erza eyed her in disbelief. "Why would I want to explore the city I've lived in half my life? I'm supposed to be here. They need me."

Mavis clicked her tongue in disapproval. "No wonder you haven't been able to move on. They're holding on too tightly, and you're holding on just as tight to them."

"Is that such a bad thing? There has to be something I can do to help them. You know more than I do, don't you? Can't you tell me how I can make them see me? What can I do? How can I help?"

Mavis tilted her head, and her normally clear eyes were solemn. "You're dead," she said. "You don't belong here. You don't exist in their world anymore, and that's not something you can change. You can't help them now. All you can do is let go."

And then she turned and disappeared into the streets, leaving Erza to press against the glass desperately and watch her family from the outside looking in.

* * *

Erza watched the guild go through all its stages of grief over the next few weeks. She watched as they cried and raged and dried their eyes. She watched as their ever-present gloom faded little by little, resurfacing in the quiet moments or in the wake of careless words but retreating enough to allow small smiles and the energy to go out on jobs again. She watched as they found a new balance, a new normal.

She watched as they began to let go.

She could feel it, too. She felt lighter, like air, and often found herself hovering a few inches above where she thought the ground ought to be. She didn't feel as tightly tethered to the guild, and could wander out farther into the city to pester Mavis about death and the afterlife and how to communicate with the living. That girl was a puzzle that Erza hadn't come close to solving. She would vanish without a trace and appear whenever she wanted, like an aloof cat living her death on her own time. Sometimes she would come when Erza called for her. More often, she wouldn't. But she was the only other ghost Erza had met, despite more time spent hanging around graveyards and wandering the city, so there wasn't much to be done about it.

Erza still hung around the guild, though. She was glad to see them moving on with their lives, even if she wasn't a part of them. It wasn't as if they'd forgotten about her. They still told stories from time to time and went misty-eyed. And when the sadness got too big and the loss hurt too much, they would venture out to her grave.

She took morbid fascination in following them out. Some of them went often, some went only once. Some went in pairs or groups, some went alone. Some told the others where they were going, some went in secret. Some brought flowers, some brought words, some brought silence.

They always got a strange kind of shine in their eyes when they were about to leave, the glitter of nostalgia and unhealed scars and unshed tears. She always knew, when they headed for the door, where they were going. And she always followed. It was like she had a masochistic urge to _know_ , and it made her feel better that she was there and listening to the words they wanted to reach her but didn't think could. She wanted to think that they sensed her presence on some level and it brought them comfort.

Lucy came often with words—lots and lots of words—and tears. Natsu and Happy came only once, and brought only silence behind tight-pressed lips. Mira and Lisanna and Elfman came together. Cana came drunk. The Master brought scarlet roses and stood in misty-eyed silence for several minutes before saying his halting goodbyes. Everyone came. And everyone went.

Except for Gray.

Gray did not visit her grave after the funeral, not even once. He did not share in the guild's stories or tears or goodbyes. He kept his sadness to himself, playing his part during the day and then going home to stare blankly at the walls or out the windows in silence until finally falling asleep. His eyes were the brightest of them all behind the hazy film clouding them, the too-bright, gritty light of crackling fluorescent bulbs at three o'clock on a Tuesday morning at the 24-hour corner store. It was awful. It barely seemed like Gray at all.

Erza was slowly floating away from the others as they learned to let go of her and she learned to let them, but the tether linking her to Gray only tightened. Mavis was right: he wasn't letting her go. And Erza couldn't just leave him like that.

She took to following him around on everything from jobs to grocery shopping to the solitary walk back home at the end of the day. No matter how closely she watched, she couldn't pierce through his walls and read him.

Mavis was no help, shrugging her thin, childlike shoulders and saying that he'd have to move on in his own time and there wasn't much she could do about it. Erza couldn't accept that, but it wasn't like she could _do_ anything, either. And it wasn't for lack of trying. She tried everything from moving objects to writing in the condensation on his windowpanes to whispering in his ear while he dozed as if she could speak right into his dreams. Nothing worked.

And then, nearly two and a half months after her death, Gray's eyes changed. He got up one morning and looked out the window for a long time, and then he turned away with clear, shining eyes and pulled on his clothes with a new sense of purpose that had been lacking from his listless existence. Erza took immediate notice. She recognized that look.

She was not surprised when he slipped out into the streets and turned away from the guild. Finally, she thought. Finally, he was going to talk to her or at least acknowledge her. But he did not go to the graveyard.

He walked out to the river and sat down on its banks, and Erza sat beside him with her insubstantial knees hugged to her insubstantial chest with insubstantial arms that felt like nothing at all. She found herself suddenly afraid of what he might say, what form his unleashed sorrow might take. It had hurt so much to watch the others go through it, but they seemed to be working through it a little at a time and this had been their first step too.

So even though she had the sudden urge to run and cover her ears, she stayed put and watched quietly. She soon realized that she had been worried about nothing, because this was Gray and his grief was silent. He said nothing, just stared out at the glassy water with his too-bright eyes and thought his own private thoughts.

But then, right when Erza was starting to relax, he drew in a deep breath.

"That was very selfish of you, Erza," he said, his voice creaking and husky like he hadn't spoken in days. He didn't look at her, of course, but Erza could feel his words pointed straight at her, cutting deep and hooking their barbs beneath her skin like he was talking directly to her rather than to a memory. "But I'm sure you knew that. You and I have always been a little too recklessly self-sacrificial, but I thought you were better than me. I thought you would make it."

He fell silent again, and Erza squirmed uncomfortably. She wondered if maybe that was part of the reason he was still so shaken up by her death, because he'd tried to sacrifice himself before too and been stopped. He had lived, and this was the other side of the coin. This was what could have happened to him, the consequences he could have wrought.

"I promised I would get you out of there," he mumbled, raw and breathy. He hunched his shoulders and drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them tight. "I promised."

"Oh, Gray," Erza sighed. She was reminded again of Natsu, but the sad and rubbed-raw version where the grief hadn't sparked bright in anger. "You know it was my choice."

Wasn't that why Natsu had been so furious? He knew Erza had made her choices and they couldn't make her stop. And yet they all still felt like they _should_ have been able to fix it somehow.

Erza understood, even though she didn't blame them. If anyone was to blame, it was herself. If only she could have found another way.

But the time for what-ifs was over. Nothing could be changed anymore, and wishing wouldn't change that. It was better to accept the way things were and move on. They were all starting to move on, and soon Erza would too. Once Gray let go, maybe. She would find out what death looked like on the 'other side', whatever that meant. And maybe it was a little frightening, but she had some hope for the unknown.

If only Gray could accept that she was gone. As hard as it was to linger and watch her friends grieve, Erza wouldn't leave until she was sure they'd be okay.

Gray drew in a shuddering breath, and his voice wavered.

"I loved you, you know," he whispered, voice cracking. "Well, of course you didn't, because I was an idiot and never told you. But I was head over heels in love with you."

For a moment, Erza could have sworn she still had a heart because she could almost feel it stop. She stared at the trembling of his jaw, the glassy-bright pain in his eyes, and couldn't comprehend it.

"I was so afraid of telling you anything or getting too close because it seems like everyone I dare to love dies." Gray laughed, a strangled, breathy little huff that sounded more like a sob than anything. He buried his head in his arms, and his voice was almost muffled out of existence as he mumbled, "But I guess it didn't matter."

Erza watched in horror as his shoulders shook and his breaths hitched. She hadn't seen him cry since her death.

"I should've just told you, whatever came of it," he sobbed into his knees. "But now it's too late and we'll never know what could have happened. We don't even have the chance to try. You never gave me the chance."

Erza gaped at him, her mind grinding to a stop and spinning out of control. He… _loved_ her? _Love_ -loved her?

She had never known, never even suspected. And she had always been too hung up on Jellal to even consider pursuing another relationship.

But she had also never considered the _possibility_ , and somehow that seemed like a terrible thing. Out of all the doors that had slammed in her face, all the lost futures suddenly closed off, this one slammed shut the hardest. Maybe it would have never gone anywhere or maybe they could have built something beautiful, but they would never have the chance to find out either way.

" _I_ didn't?" she asked, her voice faltering. " _You_ never gave _me_ the chance."

Even if nothing had ever come of it, even if it would have never worked out, she wished she had _known_. She wished she'd had the opportunity to at least _try_.

Gray stood up abruptly and scrubbed at his face. Erza scrambled to her feet beside him.

"Gray, look at me," she begged. "Gray, say something."

But he just turned on his heel and walked away. He didn't look back.

Erza lunged after him. "Where are you going?" she cried. "You can't just say something like that and walk away! Gray, get back here! Gray! _Gray!_ "

She made a grab for his arm, but her hand passed right on through. She stopped short and stared at her fingers. They looked so real, but were nothing more than an illusion. Had she forgotten that for a moment? For just a second, she had been something more than dead.

But that second was over, and Gray strode back through the grass with brisk, purposeful strides and disappeared. Erza could only stare after him.

"Wow, that was really something. I figured it was something like that."

She started in surprise and frowned over at Mavis, who had poked her head out from behind the tree she'd been spying behind.

"Because he was holding on so tight?" Erza asked dully, still too busy trying to process Gray's revelation to pay too much mind to the other ghost's appearing act.

Mavis snorted derisively. "Heavens, no. Anyone can do that. Family and friends hold on just as tight as lovers. He just had that hangdog look to him, all lost young love. Awful stuff."

Erza had never noticed that look, at least not until Gray and Mavis had put a name to it. How could she have been so _blind_? She thought back frantically to her life. Her real life, not this pale, fading incarnation. Had there been something in his eyes, his smile, his words that she had missed?

"You have to help me." She didn't care that she was begging and refused to acknowledge the flat look in Mavis' eyes. "I have to talk to him, he has to see me, I have to–"

"To what?" Mavis interrupted. Her usually cheery eyes were murky, and her voice was knife-sharp. "You can't do anything."

"But he _loves_ me!"

"And? You're _dead_. You don't get to have love affairs anymore. That's all over now." She shook her head wearily, the fight draining out of her. "Anyway, I was coming to tell you that I've had enough here and I'm heading back to Tenrou. I thought you would have moved on by now, but you're welcome to come since you're still here."

"I can't just _leave_ ," Erza protested. "My family is here, and Gray–"

"Loves you," Mavis finished tiredly. She sighed. "I thought they were keeping you here, but maybe you're the one holding on too tightly. They're starting to let you go. You need to stop holding on to a life you can no longer live. How many other ghosts do you see wandering around? It's not normal. You need to move on."

" _You_ haven't," Erza said snidely, seething.

"I'm different." Mavis turned away, bare feet flitting through the grass as she headed after Gray. "I hope you move on soon and find your rest. But if you don't, feel free to drop by Tenrou and say hi. It was nice having a friend again for a little while."

And then she was gone, and Gray was gone, and the guild was letting go. And Erza stared after them all from her private, lonely world and watched them leave her behind.

* * *

Erza followed Gray obsessively, a shadow attached to his heels. If she'd felt a pull to him before, she felt positively chained to him now.

She didn't spend as much time watching the guild or following her friends out to her grave and wondering what they were thinking. They were moving on, and now it was just her and Gray left. Mavis never reappeared. No other ghost materialized to say hello. And Gray still couldn't see her, so she might as well be alone.

It wasn't for a lack of trying. She talked to him constantly, tried to touch or leave messages or make things move. She found herself thwarted at every turn, and Gray drifted on gloomily, blissfully unaware.

She didn't know if she loved him, but she thought that she _could_. If she could just have a _chance_ , she was sure they could be happy. The what-ifs swirled about her in a murky whirlpool, haunting her with glimpses of futures that could have been. If only, if only.

She wondered if that was what Gray was seeing too when he sat by the window and gazed out blankly at the sky, eyes distant and mind miles away. He was still so sad, still missed her so much. Erza should wish for him to move on like the others, but that selfish corner of her heart was relieved that he was still holding on. That someone was still holding on to her.

And then one day, maybe two weeks later, Gray's routine changed again. He didn't go to the guild first thing in the morning like usual, or lie in bed staring at the ceiling or grab a job and run. His eyes had that gleam again, but not as bright and gritty. Something softer, maybe a little sadder.

Erza followed at his heels like a lost puppy, just like always these days. She followed him past the guild, past the river, and into the cemetery. Her steps faltered at the gates, and she wished more than ever that she could read his mind. He had never come here before, not once, and she didn't know what it meant that he was coming now, all these weeks later.

"What's wrong, Gray?" she murmured as she kicked herself back into action and followed him along the grassy paths to the memorial bearing her name. "Talk to me."

And, for once, he did.

"Hey, Erza." He toed at the ground and frowned at his feet. "It's been a while. Sorry I never came by." He was quiet for a few seconds before huffing out a breath. "I feel stupid talking to a rock. Lucy swears by it, but all I see is a rock in the ground…not you."

There was another long silence before he took a deep breath and kept going, and Erza drifted forward and watched him hungrily, hanging on every word.

"I love you, you know," he said. "I never told you. I guess I should have, before it was too late, even if you shot me down. You were beautiful, but also… You were so strong, and I admired you for being tough on the inside too, always overcoming the worst and rising above it. I loved the way you'd freak out over strawberry cake and how you'd always knock me and Natsu around and the way your eyes sparkled when you got excited about the most random things.

"I've loved you for a long time. Years. I guess I was too scared to tell you, because I'm not brave like you were. But now I wish I had. Even if you didn't feel the same way, I wish you had known that someone loved you like that, that you were special. Maybe if you'd known how special you were to someone, you wouldn't have thrown your life away like that."

Erza winced and reached out, but her fingers slid through his skin like air. "Oh, Gray…"

Gray drew in a shuddering breath and shook his head. "Wishful thinking, maybe. I don't think that would have stopped me if our positions were reversed, but still…

"Well… I didn't really want to come here. It's too final, too ugly. I wasn't ready to face it. But maybe I am now, or at least I'm getting there. I still love you. I miss you so much, and it hurts so bad. I don't think I'll ever stop loving you, but I can't spend the rest of my life staring out the window, stupidly hoping that I'll see you coming back. You're gone and I'm not, and I guess I owe it to you to keep on living since you died for us and all that. I hope you found your peace, and I hope that someday I'll find mine.

"And so I came here today to say goodbye."

Erza would have been in tears if she could still cry, floored by the aching love dripping off each word and amazed that she had been so valued and not even known it, but now fear seized her heart.

"Wait," she said, but he kept talking.

"You were such a special woman, Erza." His pale fingers fluttered through the air in graceful curves, forming crystalline roses between their tips. "You deserved the chance to grow up and live your life, and I wish more than anything that I could have been there at your side. I wish you were still here. But you're gone, and I can't live off memories. I will always remember you. I will always love you. And it hurts to let you go."

He leaned down to place the icy bouquet by the gray stone carved with her name.

"Goodbye, Erza."

And he turned his back and walked away.

"Wait!" Erza cried, lunging after him. Her grasping hand met only air. "I'm right here! I'm still here! Don't go! _Gray!_ "

But he was already gone, untouchable. Everyone was learning how to move on, but Erza suddenly realized that she couldn't just let go of them. She wanted to eat strawberry cake again and go on another job with the team and kiss Gray to see what it felt like. She wanted to live and laugh and love.

She fell to her knees with a tearless wail.

She didn't want to say goodbye.


End file.
